Accounting for your business can turn into a time-consuming and heavily demanding process really fast. As your business grows, your accounting also becomes more complex. You need to make new journal entries, create more invoices, create financial statements, and the list goes on. We think these are enough reasons for you to consider working with accounting software.
If you’re an accounting professional, you must have heard of accounting software. For those who haven’t, accounting software is an automated system capable of recording and categorising financial transactions but also paying bills, sending customer invoices, managing payrolls, and running standard reports directly on the platform.
However, the software sophistication can vary greatly by the seller. While some systems offer just the basics, enabling companies to record their ins and outs, other sellers offer more advanced tools, automated tasks you’d otherwise have to perform manually. Leaving that aside, here are some of the benefits that come up with using accounting software:
Time Is Money, Literally
A great deal of the work a bookkeeper or accountant has to do on a daily basis is very manual and repetitive. For instance:
- Creating invoices for sales
- Tracking transactions and creating respective journal entries
- Sending payment reminders to clients
You get the idea. Most of the tasks of the accounting cycle can be automated. And that’s exactly what online accounting software does.
That means you can automate journal entry creation. You can integrate your bank directly with your accounting software, and every time you make or receive a payment, a journal entry is automatically created and recorded to the right accounts.
These systems also automate things such as financial reporting or allow you to set automated vendor payments. Remember that not all cloud accounting software offers the same level of accounting automation. If you’re looking for an accounting tool that excels at automation, you should give QuickBooks a try.
Improved Security
One of the best advantages of cloud-based accounting software is that all of your accounting information is safely secured on the cloud.
That means all of the input is covered under layers of high-end encryption algorithms, making it safer than keeping it on the office shelf. While computer files can be easily corrupted, data stored on accounting software is protected by different layers of encryption algorithms, meaning it won’t easily get into the wrong hands.
Not to mention, your data will be synced regularly, so it’s continuously backed up, and there is little to no risk of losing it. By avoiding spreadsheets and manually backing up your data, you save your business both time and money.
Stellar Accuracy
With online accounting tools, you can say goodbye to the most common accounting errors.
Online accounting software will make sure that your accounting histories are organised properly and accurately every single time.
Forget spreadsheets and those times when you’d spend 4 hours trying to understand why the balance sheet did not balance? Well, that should not be the case anymore.
When using cloud accounting tools, if recently created journal entries don’t balance, the system will inform you immediately and highlight the potential error. This will help you avoid eventual mishaps before even committing to it (i.e., clicking submit).
Another common example of how accounting software can help you keep much precise accounting and financial data for your organisation is by avoiding any error related to the freshness of the data. Picture this: You’re editing a table or a spreadsheet that has already been changed before, but you never received the updated version.
Merging changes from two different files isn’t just exhausting but incredibly time-demanding. With an online accounting software, you won’t ever have to deal with such problems because all the data is synced in the cloud.
All in all, implementing accounting software into your business financial journey will ensure that your accounting records are properly and accurately organised. As such, your financial reports will be more accurate, and your employees will be able to make decisions faster and prioritise better.
More Actionable Reports
Accounting tools can provide detailed reports on your business processes and help you track the money flow in your business. You can get a clearer picture of your expenses and income at any time.
This can help you calculate your profits faster, more easily, all while learning which customers generate the most revenue for your business. Best accounting software provides in-depth, actionable reports whose scope depends massively on the type of information you enter into them.
To put it simply, these reports will help you make smart decisions and operate your business more efficiently and productively.
Advantage of Mobility
Best accounting software companies provide mobile apps for iOS and Android devices that enable you to carry your books with you.
These apps can be used for a variety of productive tasks such as sending invoices, viewing invoice information as well as expenses, attaching receipts to immediately record expenses, importing new client details right from the contact information stored in your phone, and tracking billable time.
All these add up to time efficiency, which is lacking in the accounting service.
Why Should You Make the Move to Cloud Accounting?
Whether you’re an early-stage startup or a global corporation, moving to a cloud-based accounting software system can increase efficiency and offer real-time visibility into financial performance. The latest accounting solution automates everyday transactions, speeds up the close financial process, and helps ensure compliance with tax regulations and accounting standards.
Because most of these systems are cloud-based, you don’t need to invest or take your time to handle on-premises hardware and software. Your team can access information, approve transactions and collaborate from anywhere. Comprehensive accounting software integrates with a wide range of other business applications and is scalable and customisable to the needs of growing businesses.
